


Crisis of the Heart

by aikisenshi



Series: Itanno Clan [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Family Feels, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18614389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aikisenshi/pseuds/aikisenshi
Summary: Five years ago, after many years of trials and travels, the Itanno Clan arrived on Coruscant. They hope to once again see their clanmate who Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn took to the Temple to be trained nearly twenty years before. They have yet to see their long-lost daughter... until tonight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, we see the events of “Crisis of Faith” from a different point of view, and see what effect those events have on others. It is not necessary to have read “Crisis of Faith”, however.

By the time the Ryn guitarist got to the  _ Ace of Flasks _ that evening, his Theelin friends, the dancers, were already on stage. The complex rhythms of the pieces they chose never failed to get his toes tapping and tail twitching to the beat. Maybe someday he'd try dancing again. The arm and leg that had been broken in a landspeeder accident six years ago had long since healed up, but his ability to feel that carefree had never really done the same.

Danyal set a case on top of one of the many crates cluttering the “backstage” area. He pressed his thumb to the lock's touchpad; it blinked green and the case opened. The instrument inside was incongruously plain, somewhat worn out even, for such a high-end storage case. The care with which the musician lifted the guitar out, however, matched the box well. It didn’t look like like much, but it was a treasured possession.

Danyal sat, and began a task, a ritual almost. As necessary as it was emotionally painful. Placing the tips of his long fingers on the appropriate holes of his chitinous, beak-like nose, he breathed the first note.

He plucked the first string of the instrument with one of the talon-like nails on his right hand. Then he adjusted a tuning peg with his left hand (the nails on that dark-furred hand he kept carefully trimmed, so his fingertips could press against the guitar’s frets). He plucked the string again, and adjusted the pitch again, until it was perfectly in tune with his whistle.

The process was repeated for the second string, and the fourth. Tuning an instrument this way was unique to his species, possibly to his clan. He knew many of the Kull clans didn't do it this way, but they didn't tend to be as… subtle about their music as the Itannos. Maybe there were other clans of Ryn that did it this way, but Danyal hadn't met them yet.

He strummed a chord, trying to “feel out” the tone of the third string. He couldn't breathe the note of that string, not since that same accident that had broken his left arm and leg.

This was the moment of pain and memory that came every time he prepared to perform, after so many years it was just part of the ritual now. The loss of the note would have been painful enough for any Ryn, but the tragedy that had caused that loss made it all the more difficult.

Danyal tweaked the tuning pin, then strummed the strings again.  _ It isn’t quite right, it never will be, but it's close enough, _ he thought to himself with a sigh.

“It's still a touch flat,” said a voice behind him in Galactic Basic. Danyal jumped in surprise; he hadn’t heard anyone approach. The feminine accent was upper-level Coruscanti. As the Ryn guitarist started to turn around, he wondered what someone high-class like that would be doing in a mid-level place like this.

“Yeah, I keep having problems with that one--” Danyal began, forcing his voice to sound easygoing. He looked up at the speaker and froze in shock.

She was a  _ Ryn _ , one of the most gorgeous ones he'd ever seen, her coloration that rare orangey-auburn-brown he'd only ever seen on his clan’s matron, and one other --  _ Bright kriffing stars above, it's HER. _

Danyal stood up so quickly he stumbled and nearly dropped his guitar. He recovered enough to place the instrument carefully on the crate next to where he'd been sitting.

She was there, right in front of him, wearing the distinctive layered tunic and long hooded robes of a member of the Jedi Order. Though, he noted in passing, her light blue and maroon ensemble was a bit more colorful than the average Jedi you see in the holos. Apparently even being raised by the Jedi couldn't completely repress the Ryn penchant for colorful attire. She watched him from within her raised hood, her gaze curious, and more than a bit uncertain.

“Oh stars, after all this time.” Danyal murmured, speaking to her in their native Ryn tongue. He reached out towards her with an unsteady hand. “Waiting, hoping someday I would-- ah _ , the clan _ would-- get to see you again. It's you, it's really you.”

He had to touch her, to feel her under his hands, to make sure she was real, that this wasn't some kind of... hallucination, or hyper-real hologram.

The next thing Danyal knew he was moving forward, wrapping his arms around the woman's shoulders in a tight embrace. The movement pushed the hood off her head.

“Oh, Sennah…” he whispered beside her ear as the hood fell back, draping over his arms.

The woman tensed, made as if she was going to pull away, but paused. She drew a deep breath and released it slowly, he heard it whistle slightly as it passed through her nose. The Jedi hummed a few notes quietly to herself, almost subconsciously, it seemed. The tune was just starting to sound familiar somehow when she abruptly stopped.

“Dan-Dan?” she murmured questioningly.

Danyal began to laugh. He released the Ryn woman and moved back a step.

“Dan-Dan? Damn, I haven't been called that since before I grew out of my stripes.” He grinned at her. “Do you really remember me? Your friend Danyal?”

He gestured to himself as he said his name, searching her face for any sign of recognition. Sennah just stared at him, her eyes searching his. She looked confused, and more than a bit overwhelmed.

“I’m sorry, I probably shouldn't have hugged you without asking. Jedi probably don't do a lot of hugging, or maybe they do? Just not, uh, other stuff?”  _ Great, now I’m rambling,  _ he thought, running a hand through his long hair. “Do you,  _ stars _ , do you even understand what I’m saying?”  _ Did she even speak their people’s language any more? _

Danyal took his other hand off the Jedi’s shoulder and waved it in front of her face. The woman blinked, finally, and took a deep shuddering breath.

“Hey, are you ok?” Danyal asked. “You look a little shaky. Do you need to sit down?”

She nodded absently. Danyal gestured to the crate he'd been sitting on a moment earlier. She sat down next to his guitar.   
  
“So, wh--?” Danyal began, but just then the music on stage ended. Danyal looked up as Aster and Palla stepped through the curtains and off the stage. Aster waved at Danyal.

“You're up, Danny Boy,” he said.

“Dammit.” Danyal grabbed his guitar and strummed it, checking its tuning a final time.

He heard a note. The Ryn woman was breathing the note for the third string. The string  _ was _ a bit flat. Danyal smiled at Sennah as he adjusted the tuning pin and strummed the chord again. She nodded, it was in tune now.

Danyal put a hand on her shoulder.

“I gotta go make some credits,” the musician said. “Wait here for me.”   
  
He jogged the couple of steps to the stage, but paused at the curtain, looking back at Sennah. It was like a dream, seeing her sitting there, smiling back at him. He winked, then slipped out onto the stage.  _ I’ll play something special for her,  _ he thought,  _ a Ryn classic, something she probably hasn't heard since we were little. _

***

Aster looked curiously at the Ryn woman as he and his dance partner did their quick costume change. She had moved to the edge of the curtain where she could see Danyal, playing his guitar like the  _ kriffing _ masterpiece of a musician he was. He was singing in his people's language, Aster realized. Danyal didn't do that much in public; his club songs tended to be in Basic, or occasionally that trade language from the corner of the Galaxy he'd grown up in. There must be something special about that woman; she was boosting the guitarist's confidence. Wait... those clothes... was she a Jedi? Could she be Danyal's mystery girl? The one Danyal's clan had come to Coruscant to be near? Aster had a pretty good finger on the pulse of fashion on Coruscant; no one would be copying that distinctive style. No one wanted to be mistaken for a Jedi in this political climate. Only an actual member of the mystical Order would be dressed like that.

Aster saw the Jedi smile at first, as she watched and listened to the Ryn man’s performance. The woman even seemed to be humming along. Suddenly though, she visibly shuddered and started backing away from the stage. There was a frightened look on her face.

“Hey, are you a Jedi?” Palla asked, with her usual lack of subtlety. She was a dear girl, and a wonderful dancer, but could be as blunt as a bolt-driver sometimes.

“Of course she is, Palla,” Aster spoke up. “Who else wears robes like that? Welcome, honored Jedi, to our little corner of Coruscant.”

“Are you  _ her _ ?” Palla asked with a gasp. “The Jedi woman Danyal's songs are about?”

The Jedi's look bordered on panic. Aster winced. That was  _ not  _ the best way to learn that someone, even sweet, moody Danyal, was somewhat obsessed with you.

“I need to go, I’ve stayed too long already,” the Jedi murmured in an increasingly frantic tone. She started looking around for the nearest exit. “I shouldn't have come.”

“Please don't leave.” Aster said, as soothingly as he could. “Danyal would be  _ so _ disappointed, please stay and give him a chance to talk with you.”

“Tell him I... I’ll come back. In, ah, two days.” The Ryn Jedi all but ran to the back exit of the building and escaped into the alley.

“Did I say something wrong?” Palla asked.

“Well, you certainly didn't help the situation,” Aster said with a sigh.

On stage, Danyal's song ended with a flourish, it was time for their joint performances to start.

As Aster and Palla slipped back onstage, Danyal looked concerned.

“Where did she go?” he asked, under the cover of the applause as the dancers took their places.

“I’m afraid she left.” Aster whispered.

“What?!” Danyal almost shouted.

“Music now, talk later,” Aster replied. “I’m sorry, dear.”

***

“So, what happened?” Danyal demanded as the trio stepped off the stage, their performance done for the evening.

“I think I scared her off,” Palla said sadly. “I told her you'd written songs about her, I’m sorry.”

“You WHAT?” Danyal asked, horrified.

“Actually, Palla, she was already quite frightened when she started backing away from the stage.” Aster explained soothingly. “If anything, it looked like it was Danyal she was afraid of.”

Danyal muttered a series of curses in Ryn. He knew he shouldn't have hugged her, but he'd just been so... overjoyed.

“Did she say anything?” The musician asked hopefully as he packed away his guitar.

“Yes, she said she would be back in two days,” Aster answered.

“I guess that's something.” Danyal sighed.

***

A chime sounded at the front of Oali’s droid repair shop, letting her know that someone had just passed through the doorway. It was late, but she had left the shopfront open as she finished up one last project for the night.

“Be right with you!” Her softly accented Basic echoed out from the back room where she was micro-soldering a cleaning droid’s central matrix.

“It's just me, clancousin,” said a familiar voice speaking Ryn at the doorway to her workroom.

“Hey Danyal, what's up?” Oali asked, pushing her magnifying goggles up onto her forehead and closing the access panel on the droid. She hopped off the stool at her workbench, muscles cramped from hours of hunching over her detailed work. She was only in her early thirties; she really shouldn't be aching like this, but her body had taken a bit more punishment than the average being of her age. Eight years of slavery would do that to a person.

“I saw Sennah tonight,” Danyal murmured.

The Ryn droid mechanic froze, mid-stretch. “You what?!”

“Saw Sennah, your cousin who was given to the Jedi twenty years ago.” Danyal leaned back against the door frame, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“ _ Stars _ , Dan, I remember who Sennah is,” Oali rolled her eyes. “I just wasn't sure I’d heard you correctly. Where did you see her?”

“She was backstage at the  _ Ace of Flasks _ ,” he replied, staring at a scuff on the floor.

“Wow.” Oali breathed. “How did she find you? Where is she now?”

Danyal shrugged. “She disappeared while I was on stage. One minute she was there in the wings, listening to me perform ‘Desert Wind’. When I looked again, she was gone.”

“What did she say? What did you say to  _ her _ ?” Oali inquired, starting to pack up her tools as she listened eagerly.

“Honestly, I don't remember,” Danyal answered with a sigh of frustration. “I was so surprised. I was rambling pretty bad.”

The Ryn woman's mouth quirked up in a smile as she locked her toolbox. For all his eloquence as a songwriter, her clanmate was easily flustered speaking on the fly.

Danyal ran a dark-furred hand through his mane of long tan hair. “I may have, um, hugged her, too.”

Oali's laughter filled the small workshop. “Oh, Danyal. You stargazing lunatic…” She pounded her workbench, gasping for breath through her giggles. “You  _ hugged... _ a  _ Jedi… _ ”

Danyal glared at his clanmate, snagged his guitar case and stomped out of the repair shop.

“Wait, Danyal!” Oali called out, sobering at seeing his anger. But he was already gone. She quickly locked up the shop and hurried after him.


	2. Chapter 2

The Itanno clan home was in a portion of a building that had originally been built as dormitories for a university. The university had long ago gone defunct; but an enterprising being had turned the dorms into housing for species that preferred a more communal style of living. There was a central kitchen, a gathering area with a retractable table, and study nook with couches and holonet screens. From the central area, hallways stretched to either side, leading to four mini-apartments each. Each dormitory had its own 'fresher (adaptable to whatever species might inhabit the space), and plenty of room for a bed, closet, shelving units, and a desk.

Eda was in the kitchen, packing away the leftovers from dinner. The Itanno clan matron had decided it was late enough that any of her children or clanmates who were still out and about had probably gotten their own food. She wished more of her clan, the younger ones especially, would stop spending their hard-earned credits on other beings’ cooking when there was plenty of food here at home. Well, at least there would be leftovers individually packaged and ready for them to grab in the morning.

The front door security panel beeped. Eda looked up to see Danyal enter, carrying the case that held his mother's guitar. For the millionth time, she thanked Fate and the Force that they had been able to salvage the instrument from the ruins of their camp so long ago. The guitar was now the only thing the young man had left of his immediate family, besides his memories.

“Welcome home, son. Have you had dinner?” She called out.

Danyal was, of course, not actually her son, but she called all of his generation of younglings 'son’ or 'daughter’. No matter that their actual relation was second cousins once removed, or third cousins, or completely unrelated by blood or marriage. The mostly-orphaned group of Ryn had all become her and Gandan's children when they recovered them from the slave compound ten years ago. Only a few of the children had decided to continue on to Coruscant with them five years later, though. Many had found homes, families, or true loves among the Kull clan, who had helped the Itannos find and rescue their scattered clanmates.

Danyal shook his head. That somewhat ridiculously long hair of his rippled from the movement. “No, thank you, Aunt Eda, I'm not hungry.” 

“What's happened?” Eda asked, wiping her hands clean on a towel before tucking back a few wisps of her silver-frosted auburn hair. The boy looked troubled, like he had something he wanted to say, but was hesitant. She needed to get that boy talking more. There were deep wounds in his soul that needed healing, and if he kept trying to bury them, they'd fester forever, and he'd never be whole again.

He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the door chimed again. Oali, who was one of Eda's actual daughters, entered.

“Danyal! Listen, I'm sorry…” Oali began.

“Ask Oali,” Danyal said, in answer to Eda's query. “I don't feel like getting laughed at some more.”

Danyal started to stomp towards his dorm, but ran into Gandan, the clan patron. He was just slipping out of the nursery after putting their grandson Candun to bed. The little one's mother, Fina, was newly pregnant and was suffering from the resulting nausea and fatigue; Candun's father Aandon was working late that night.

“Ah, Danyal. Welcome home, son.” Gandan's gaze, sharp and intelligent despite being only one-eyed for the past twenty years, took in the situation and the looks on his family members’ faces. “What's going on?”

“Danyal saw Sennah this evening.” Oali announced.

“You did? Where? How?” Gandan asked excitedly, clasping the young man's shoulders. “How did she look? Is she happy, is she well?”

“I don't  _ know _ !” Danyal replied in a low but increasingly frustrated tone. “She left before I even had a chance to really talk to her. I was stupid and scared her away.”

“Scared her away?” Gandan asked. “How?”

“Ay!” Eda exclaimed softly as she came over and placed a calming hand on both men's shoulders. “Let's all go sit, relax, and we'll hear Danyal's story, ok?”

The matron shooed them all over to the comfortable couches in the sitting area.

“Now, tell us what happened, Danyal. There will be no laughing-” Eda eyed Oali sharply, her daughter covered her mouth and made a sign of promise. “-No blame, just the story.”

Danyal re-told the night's events, of arriving at the club to perform, of tuning up, and of finding the clan's lost child standing right behind him. Eda smiled when Danyal confessed to hugging the Jedi Knight, it was probably what she would have done too.

“I don't know why she left,” Danyal concluded morosely. “Aster said she looked scared. What could possibly scare a Jedi? Except me being too friendly, and being told some stranger was writing songs about you.”

Eda nodded, Danyal's friends, the Theelin dancers, had become friends of the clan as well. They had come to a few clan celebrations and delighted them all with their talent and grace. Eda trusted Aster's assessment, the man was quite observant and sensitive to emotional situations.

“Did she say anything before she left?” Gandan asked, probing for all the information he could glean.

“Aster said she'd told him to tell me she'd be back in two days,” Danyal answered.

“Two days,” Gandan repeated. “Well, I guess we will wait and see. Eda and I will come with you to the club, in the hopes that we may speak with her. Any more folk than that might cause a stir.”

“It's late, loved ones,” Eda said. She stood up and held her hands out to help pull the two men off the couches. “Let's all go to bed, eh? We will see what the morning brings.”

Oali tailed Danyal to his dormitory.

“What do you want, Oali?” The musician asked, stowing his guitar case on a shelf and tossing his jacket in the vague direction of the closet. Danyal's dorm was decidedly untidy, especially for a Ryn, they were an almost obsessively clean and orderly people.

“I'm sorry for laughing at you. It just struck me as really funny after a long boring day of work.” Oali used the tip of her tail to sweep some empty food wrappers off Danyal's desk. She perched atop it in a the somewhat clean spot. Her elbows planted on her knees, chin resting in a taupe-furred hand. “But, really, Dan? You've written songs about her?”

“Who did you think 'Maiden in the High Tower’ was about?” Danyal muttered as he collapsed onto his small cot and stared up at the ceiling.

The female Ryn shrugged. “I dunno, that fairytale? About the princess who is taken away and locked in a tower, until her true love comes along and…”

Oali trailed off, watching Danyal's increasingly embarrassed expression.

“Damn, you are a stargazing fool, aren't you?” Oali sighed.

“Blame your father,” Danyal retorted bitterly, gesturing out towards the common room. “He's the one who dragged what's left of the clan halfway across the Galaxy to sit at the foot of the tower to wait for a possible glimpse of his special niece.”

“But why are  _ you _ obsessing?” Oali asked. “Is it that old Iktotchi's 'prophecy’ still?” 

“I don't know,” the Ryn shrugged. “I still can't help but think that since the rest of his predictions came true, that maybe mine will too…?”

“Don't you think you're reading too much into that night? How do you know you're even remembering it correctly? You told me yourself you were half-drunk and high on who knows what.” Oali sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “How could you possibly be destined to be with a Jedi? Stars above, they're kriffing ascetics, they're not even allowed to have relationships with their families, much less lovers.”

“I  _ know _ .” Danyal growled, covering his face with his hands. “Fate damn me, I  _ know _ all that. I still feel like there's something to the old man's words. Actually seeing her tonight, standing there like some kind of dream… you have no idea… I had this feeling of, I don't know, hope? A small glimmer of sunshine warming the depths of my soul. She's... damn, she's beautiful, Oali.” Danyal continued, running his hands through his hair then interlacing them behind his head. “You'd love her. She must be how your mother looked when she was young. Same color of skin and fur, same gorgeous reddish-brown hair.”

Oali shrugged. “My aunt was that same rare shade. I remember her, I was eight when she was killed. You were barely two years old. I remember her little Sennah was starting to show that color under her baby stripes. Used to envy her. Dunno why none of my sisters or I inherited it, too much of my father in us I guess.”

“Two days…” Danyal muttered to himself. “Do you think she'll actually come back? She told Aster she would. What if she doesn't?”

“Jedi have a reputation for keeping their word, she'll probably come back,” Oali responded. She stood up and absent-mindedly began to tidy up the clutter on and around Danyal's desk. “Whether she sticks around, that's the question… How much will she want to disobey her superiors? To bend or outright break her vows to the Order?”

“Why am I even still thinking about her like this?” Danyal fumed, sitting up and resting his head in his hands. “You should have heard her, Oali, she talked like an upper-level Coruscanti, not a  _ trace _ of Ryn in her voice. I spoke to her in Ryn, but I don't think she actually understood anything I was saying. She's not really one of us, she doesn't know our language, or songs, or traditions, or stupid superstitions.”

Oali tossed her handful of garbage in a basket and came over to stand by Danyal's cot. “Oy, move your tail,” she instructed softly. He complied without looking up. She took a seat next to him.

“Why am I so messed up?” Danyal whimpered, leaning over onto Oali's shoulder.

“Because we've been through Hell, little brother.” The older female responded, putting an arm around his shoulders. That term was the best she had to describe the affection and protectiveness she felt for her clancousin. He wasn't her blood brother, but there wasn't a word for the relationship they had. What did you call someone with which you'd been forced, under threat of torture, to share intimate relations normally reserved for loving spouses? There  _ was _ no word for it, there  _ were _ no words for much of what they'd experienced. It had been almost eight years that the children and most of the women of their clan had been captives in the mining and slave-breeding compound.

The kidnapped Ryn had been separated from each other, the males sent to one part of the compound, the females to another. The children under six were kept in a nursery, cared for by the females who were past breeding age. There were multiple species among the slaves, but it was predominantly Ryn. The agile, hard-working, deft-fingered species was useful - and rarely missed when they disappeared from the Galaxy at large.

The slave masters considered Ryn old enough to be bred at barely twelve years old. Oali had been sent directly to the breeding deck when the clan had been sold to the compound's masters. Danyal, who had been too old for the nursery, had been sent to the worker's area, to be trained to strip-mine asteroids for precious materials.

Once he'd come of age years later, Danyal had often been paired with Oali. They apparently had a combination of genetics the breeders’ analysis droids had liked. Over her years of enslavement, Oali had given birth to only one child who had survived long enough to be sent to the nursery. The rest of her pregnancies had been miscarriages or stillborn. She had eventually been declared a non-breeder and sent to work in the compound Master's quarters. There, she was used as a personal maid and plaything. But between the torturous nights and endless days of menial labor, she managed to hijack a computer terminal and send coded messages that eventually led Gandan and his Kull clan allies to locate and rescue them.

Oali had already not been developing much of a romantic interest in men when she was brought to the compound. She had come away from it with a deep, nauseating aversion to even being touched by any male, save for a few select family members (basically only Danyal and her father).

Oali's oldest sister Fina, on whose wedding day they'd all been kidnapped, had given birth to multiple children during their captivity. It had taken years for her to recover from the guilt she felt for betraying her newlywed husband. The fact that she had not willingly violated their unconsummated marriage vows only slightly lessened her shame. It had taken her a long time, and a good deal of long-suffering patience on her husband Aandon's part, for her to feel worthy to have children of the couple’s own. They had three children now, with another on the way.

Their middle sister Rhianna, she had died in childbirth, according to their Masters. Sometimes, in her darkest moods, Oali wondered whether Rhianna had been the lucky one.

Danyal, for his part, had found that in addition to being a brief reprieve from the back-breaking labor of mining; the rush and endorphin release of those breeding-room encounters were one of the few things that would bring him out of the darkness his mind, heart, and soul regularly inhabited. For a time at least, until the feelings faded and he was faced with the reality of their existence once more.

At barely sixteen years old when they were rescued, Danyal had not adjusted to a normal life very well. He sought out excesses of all kinds to continue to try to chase off the darkness. Within a year of being reunited with the clan, he had taken one of the clan's few recovered heirlooms (his late mother's guitar, which he had been adeptly learning to play) and ran off in search of excitement. He found a band looking for a string player, and spent almost five years touring the Corellian Way with them. Making music, which had its own way of relieving the darkness, but also partying in the hardest ways.

Six years ago, Danyal barely survived a tragic airspeeder accident; his bandmates had not. He had returned to the clan a much more sober, if still troubled, young man.

“It's late, little brother,” Oali murmured. “Do you want me to get you something to help you sleep?”

“No, I shouldn't, I've been taking too many of those lately.” Danyal replied, more responsibly than usual.

“Ok, then,” Oali said, giving Danyal's shoulders a squeeze. “Why don't you turn on some music, get a hot shower, and then crash. Or at least, clean up this dorm a bit? You'll feel better if it's tidy, I promise. I'll check with you in the morning before I go to the shop, ok?”

“Yes, big sister,” Danyal said, in lightly mocking obedience.

She smiled and gave Danyal another hug before standing up and heading out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

“I'm sorry, teacher, did you say that was a major  _ fourth _ , or a major  _ fifth _ ?” The young Gotal asked, her hairy eyebrows knitting in confusion.

Danyal plucked the chord again on his guitar. “Sorry, yes, you're right, Maari, major fifth.”

“Are you ok, teacher?” The girl asked, her voice sounding distinctly concerned. “You seem really distracted.”

Danyall ran his hands down his face, trying hard to rid his mind of the distractions, well,  _ distraction _  singular, that had plagued him for nearly twenty hours now.

“I'm sorry, Maari. I  _ am _ distracted today,” Danyal sighed. “I don't think I'm going to be able to focus very well on teaching your lesson.”

“We can skip the lesson today,” the girl whispered. “I won't tell my Maa if you won't.”

“What would you want to do instead?” Danyal leaned over, whispering conspiratorially.

“Tell me a story!” She replied.

“A story?” Danyal chuckled. “About what?”

The kid grinned. “The person you're thinking of, the one who's distracting you.”

“How do you know it's a person distracting me?” Danyal replied, smiling at the child.

“You have the same look Maa gets when she's remembering Daa.” Maari replied astutely. “Faraway, and kind of sad.”

“Alright, little mind-reader, I will tell you a story.”

Danyal played a few notes of a song, it was cheerful and playful, a child's nursery rhyme.

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Sennah. She was very smart, and very special. She could do amazing things that no one could explain.”

“Like a Jedi?!” The girl exclaimed.

“Yes,  _ exactly _ like a Jedi.” Danyal confirmed, strumming a few chords that were low, mysterious and powerful. “One day, some teachers saw what she could do and asked if they could take her to their school. They wanted to help her learn and give her the chance to help people across the Galaxy with her special power. But, if she went with them, she would never see her family again.”

Maari's face, which had been beaming at the thought of new adventure, suddenly fell. “Not even her Maa?”

“Not even her Maa.” Danyal replied, the notes from his guitar alternating between excitement and sadness.

“What did they decide to do?”

“They decided to let her go,” the musician replied, with a chord from that same mysterious but powerful motif. “But secretly, they planned to go the planet her school was on and visit her.”

“That's good!” The girl clapped her hands.

“But then, the girl's family got lost.” Danyal continued, playing a sad, searching song. “It took them a long time to find each other again. But when they did finally, they kept their plan and went to the planet Sennah's school was on.”

“Did they get to see her?” Maari asked hopefully.

“Not until many years later, when one of the family members saw Sennah in the city outside the school.” Danyal's hands played a happy, surprised tune. “He even talked to her a little. But, Sennah didn't know her family's language any more, and got scared and ran back to her school.”

Danyal and his guitar fell silent.

“What happened next?” The girl prompted.

“I don't know,” the musician shrugged. “That was yesterday. She told my friend she would come back in two days. That's tomorrow. But I don't know what's going to happen next.” Danyal smiled at his student.  “What do  _ you _ think will happen?”

Maari scrunched up her furry flat-nosed face in thought.

“I think,” she said finally. “That if I was Sennah I would do what I said I would, even if I was scared. I would want to see my family again.”

“I hope you're right, Maari.”

***

The three Ryn clanmates waited. Gandan and Eda stood, side-by-side as they were in all things, each with an arm around the other's waist. Danyal sat on a crate facing them, leaning back against the wall of the alley behind the  _ Ace of Flasks. _

“When do you think she's going to be here?” Gandan asked.

Danyal shrugged. “It was about this time of night I last saw her, two days ago. She said she'd be back in two days. Hopefully that means here and now. According to the Holonews, there's been a lot of excitement at the Jedi Temple the past week or two with the bombing and the hunt for the suspect. She could have changed her mind and isn't coming.”

Danyal tapped his heel against the empty crate nervously. He was trying very hard to stay calm, but internally, he was rapidly cycling between excitement, dread, and the hopeless futility of it all.

There was a movement at the end of the alley. Danyal looked up, and there she was.

She was not wearing the full Jedi robes she had worn two days ago. Today she had a simple dark blue tunic and pants with a satchel slung cross-wise across her chest. The deep blue fabric complimented her light auburn hair and fur beautifully. She really was as gorgeous as Danyal remembered.

Eda saw Danyal look up and turned to follow his gaze. The matron gasped and lifted a trembling hand to her mouth as she caught sight of her niece. The girl was the exact image of Eda's late sister. It had been so long. Would she even remember them?

“Sennah!” Gandan called out excitedly as the young woman approached. As one, he and Eda reached out and pulled her into their arms. They hugged her fiercely.

“Ah, my sister's daughter, how are you? Are you well? You look healthy. Have you learned many things? Do you remember us?” Eda's questions tumbled out of her in a rush. “Ay, Gandan, doesn't she look just like her mother?”

“She does, very much.” Gandan agreed. “And like  _ you _ did when we first met. Come, greet her, Danyal. Eda, let her breathe, give her a chance to talk. How are you, my not-so-little Sennah?”

Gandan and Eda stepped back and looked at Sennah expectantly. The Jedi Knight stared back, a look of both confusion and concentration on her face.

Finally she shook her head. In the cooly accented Basic of the Coruscanti elite, she spoke: “I am sorry. I do not speak your language.”

“See, what did I tell you?” Eda heard Danyal mutter behind her.

“Oh, not a problem, dear one,” Gandan said, switching to Galactic Basic. He smiled, but Eda could hear the sadness in his voice at knowing the girl had lost so much.

“We are so glad to see you again, Sennah.” Eda's husband continued. “Do you remember your Uncle Gandan and Aunt Eda?”

Sennah closed her hazel eyes (so like her mother's). Her brow furrowed for a moment, as if straining to hear a distant tune. She hummed quietly, a short snatch of a somewhat familiar song, then nodded and opened her eyes again.

“I do, a bit.” The Jedi replied. “Though I did not know it was your presences in particular that I have been remembering all these years.”

Danyal felt a small bit of hope start to build as he listened to the clan elders question Sennah. Perhaps he might still get a chance to know her better. They asked how she was, if the Jedi had been kind to her, if she had learned to use the abilities they had seen in her as a child. Her responses seemed guarded, as if she did not want to give more than basic answers.

When Gandan told Sennah that the clan had been on Coruscant for over five years, she looked surprised for a moment, then sad. It was quickly covered by Jedi stoicism again, but for a brief second, Danyal had seen a flicker of real emotion. She seemed sad about not having met them until now. Danyal let spark of hope grow a little more. He closed his eyes and wished to the Stars, or Fate, or the Force, or whatever powers might be listening, that he was not hoping in vain.

“Ah, it is late and we are huddling in a dark alley like thieves.” Eda suddenly announced, clapping her hands together. “Come dear one, we will have some food. You can see your cousins again, and meet their little ones. There is a dozen people waiting for us at home.”

Sennah was quiet for a moment. Danyal opened his eyes and looked at her. The Jedi calm slipped again. He saw it, just a flicker, of sorrow. Danyal's heart began to sink again.

“I am sorry,” Sennah said finally, her voice firm and polite. Too polite, especially in that damned accent. “I thank you for your dedication, and your perseverance in wanting to see me again. But I cannot. I am already breaking the Order’s rules in meeting you here tonight. I came because I told Danyal’s friends I would, and a Jedi keeps their word. But I should not have even sought you out in the first place. It was a moment of weakness after a time of great stress. It would not be fair, or right, for me to be able to have a relationship with my birth family when every other Jedi cannot. It is simply what you agreed to when you sent me away with Master Qui-Gon Jinn.”

“How is Master Qui-Gon Jinn, by the way?” Eda asked brightly. Danyal could tell she was trying to change the subject, to keep Sennah talking. Maybe she'd change her mind. “Has he taught you many things?”

“He was killed, about thirteen years ago.” The Jedi replied matter-of-factly, but Danyal heard her voice waver slightly at the end.

“May he forever dance among the Stars in peace.” Gandan and Eda recited together in Ryn, glancing up to the distant, barely-seen Coruscant night sky. Danyal made a quiet humorless snort.  _ As if you could see any stars from the surface of this cursed city-planet of a billion lights _ .

“He… he is, actually, I think.” Sennah replied thoughtfully, glancing up at the sky herself. “Out there somewhere, keeping an eye on me.”

Danyal saw Eda clasp Gandan's hand in excitement. Sennah had understood at least part of their words.

“I have to go,” she said then. “I will be missed if I stay much longer.”

“Is there anything we can do for you, dear one?” Gandan asked in desperation.

“No, there is not,” she told them, her accent getting even crisper. She paused for a moment, however, looking thoughtful. Her voice softened a bit as she continued.

“But there is something you can do for a friend.” The Jedi reached into her satchel as she spoke. “A young female Togruta is without a home tonight. I do not know where she may have gone after leaving the Temple this afternoon, or what friends she might have in the City.”

Sennah retrieved an item from her satchel and held it out to Gandan and Eda. “But if you can locate former Padawan Ahsoka Tano, please give her this datachip. Let her know it is from me. Whatever love, caring or resources you would give to me, please, give to her. She has suffered a great betrayal and needs some friends right now.”

Gandan took the chip from his niece.

“We will find her, dear one,” he said with a decisive nod. “We have many contacts among the kinder folk of the lower levels. Someone will have seen her and be able to direct us to her.”

Sennah retreated a step and thanked the Ryn while giving a small bow. Danyal finally stood, he took a step towards the Jedi, his hand stretched out towards her imploringly. Then, without more than a glance Danyal's way, she turned, walked briskly back up the alley, and was gone.

“I guess that's that,” Eda whispered sadly. “At least we know she's alright.”

Hot, angry tears welled up in Danyal's eyes, his outstretched hand lowered, turning into a fist at his side. “ _ Kriff _ her-.”

“Danyal!” Eda gasped. “Language!”

“-and  _ kriff _ the Jedi too.” Danyal continued, ignoring the elders’ disapproving looks. He made a rude gesture in Sennah's direction and spat on the ground. “What have they  _ ever _ brought us but sadness and trouble?”

“Son-” Gandan began.

“No!” Danyal interrupted, whirling around and kicking over the empty crate with a resounding crash. “I’m  _ not _ your son, I’m not  _ anyone’s _ son. There’s no one in this Galaxy I really belong with, and I don’t know why I even try any more.”

Danyal stalked down the alley, the opposite way Sennah had gone. Eda took a step as if to follow him, her hand outstretched. Gandan stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Leave him be, Eda,” the Ryn elder murmured. “He needs time to cool, we’ll talk to him when he gets home.”

_ But what if he doesn’t come home? _ Eda worried to herself as Danyal disappeared around the corner.


	4. Chapter 4

“Whatcha got for me, sexy-lady?” Came a bright, high voice as a pink-furred Squib stepped through the doorway of Oali's Repair Shop.

Oali looked up from her shop terminal and glanced around nervously. “Not so loud, Kemmie.”

“Your Clan not around.” The Squib laughed a bubbly giggle. “Relax, silly-silly.”

Kemmie pulled a stool over next to Oali’s and sat down. She draped an arm across the Ryn woman’s shoulders, giving Oali a fond hug as she leaned over to see what Oali was working on.

“I'm trying to find someone who might be hiding in the lower levels.” Oali replied.

The rodent-like alien let out a long whistle, her large ears twitching in amusement. “Whew, that hard. There billions and billions a beings on Big-City-Planet.”

“My father is spreading word through his contacts, but I thought I'd try a more technological approach.” Oali tapped a few more keys on her terminal. “I'm not getting very far."

“Yep-yep, you need my help, babe.” Kemmie grinned and patted Oali on the back. “You doing it slow-slow way. Here, lemme help.”

The Squib pulled a small cobbled-together electronic box out of one of the many pouches on her patchwork outfit. She pulled a bundle of cables from another. She connected one cable between the box and Oali's terminal, then another from the box to the custom-built tech bracer on her arm.

Oali's terminal screen blinked as Kemmie's slicer rig took over the search.

“So, you looky for this Togruta girl? Damn, she the Pada-Jedi who was in big-trouble for booming the Jedi-Big-Building.”

“The ‘Jedi Temple’, Kem.” Oali corrected with a long-suffering sigh.

“Hey, I tell you many-time,” Kemmie grinned. “You have your kind's funny-talky, I have mine.”

Kemmie's deft fingers tapped some commands on her bracer's display, and a holovid from the trial came up on the terminal.

“Other Pada-Jedi actually did the booming, Pada-Ahsoka Tano went free.” Kemmie scrolled through news reports. “Holonews talky-heads don't say what happen to her after.”

“She left the Jedi Order.” Oali replied.

Kemmie whistled again.

“She's somewhere in the City.” Oali shrugged helplessly. “My cousin, the Jedi, asked us to find her.”

Kemmies bright eyes opened wide in surprise. “Wow, someone talked to Jedi-cousin?”

“She showed up at a club Danyal was playing at three days ago.” Oali explained. “Then, last night, she met with my parents and Danyal. She told them she couldn't see any of us again, but there was a young woman who could use our help.”

“The Pada-Jedi.”

Oali nodded in agreement. Kemmie pulled up the holovid of the trial again and began extracting the Togruta's image from it.

“How handsome-and-moody taking it?” Kemmie asked as she worked. “Meeting-and-then-losing dream girl?”

“I don't really know, no one's seen Danyal since last night.” Oali replied worredly.

“Okee, got her specs,” Kemmie announced. “Now we looky-find.”

“What's your plan?” Oali asked, eyeing the Squib's equipment scattered across her counter.

“Slice into CSF watchy-eyes.” Kemmie whispered.

“Wait, seriously?” Oali replied, a bit alarmed.

“Not big-deal, done before to help family find good-loots.” Kemmie shrugged and tapped a few more buttons on her bracer, starting the search algorithm.

Kemmie's people were scavengers. The Squibs were dealers in the useful, and not-so-useful, discards of Upper Level civilization. Oali met Kemmie over three years ago when the tech-scavenger came into Oali’s shop looking to sell some of the better pieces the Squibs had acquired. The pair had grown very close over the years. Oali had been invited to, and attended, many celebrations with Kemmie’s family. Oali had yet to even introduce her girlfriend to her own Clan. She was too afraid of what their reaction would be. The family, the Clan, was everything to her father, and that included continuing its existence by siring the next generation of Itannos. He would never understand her feelings, he would only see the betrayal of their traditions and her sacred responsibilities to the Clan.

The thought reminded Oali that she was going to try to comm Danyal again when she got into the shop this morning, but she’d gotten distracted by her search. She pulled out her comm unit and dialed in his frequency.

Suddenly, Kemmie’s ears twitched, zeroing in on a distant sound. “Babe, do you have alarmy-beeper up in your hidey-room?”

“No, but I am trying to comm Danyal,” Oali replied. “Be right back.”

Oali went into the back of her shop, to the storage area. In the corner above some shelves was a meter-high, meter-wide, by three meter long loft-like space. It was intended for further storage, but Oali had put a small cot up there for nights when she was working late on a project and needed a place to crash for a few hours. (It had also occasionally been the site of a few of Oali and Kemmie’s nights in).

There was a muffled beeping coming from the pile of bedding on the cot; there was also a long, dark brown tail with light tan hairs at the end. Oali reached up and gave the tail a tug, a muffled groan came from the blankets.

“Oy, Danyal,” She grumbled in their native tongue. “It’s nearly midday. Time to get up, no more hiding up here. How did you even get in?” She pulled the covers off him as she climbed the ladder into the space, intending to chide him for being avoidant (and somehow breaking into her shop). What she found, however, made her sigh. Multiple empty bottles of some pretty strong varieties of alcohol lay strewn around on the floor under the cot.

“Dammit, Danyal.” Oali started gathering the bottles and chucking them across the storage room to a rubbish bin. “What are you doing? I thought you were over this stuff.”

“Go away,” came Danyal's groggy voice from where he lay, facing the wall. “Just let me be miserable and alone, like I'm going to be forever.”

“No, you're getting up.” Oali said firmly, picking up another bottle. “Come on, little brother.” 

Kemmie stuck her head into the storage room doorway, and quickly ducked back as a bottle came flying past her nose. “Everything okey-dokey back here, babe?”

“It will be, once I get Danyal's hung-over pity-partied ass out of my cot.” Oali replied in Basic, her voice more disappointed than angry.

A tone sounded and a light began to flash on Kemmie's tech bracer. “Ooh, got a hit. Maybe found her.” She backed up into the workroom to check the terminal.

“Going to give you five minutes, Danyal,” Oali said, switching back to Ryn. She chucked the last bottle into the bin. “Then I'm sending Artee up here with a liter of water to dump on your head.”

Oali climbed down the ladder and pointed a finger at a small droid sitting in a charging unit on top of a shelf. “You hear that, Artee?”

RT-22 beeped in the affirmative, adding that it had already begun a countdown timer. It disconnected from the base and hovered off on anti-grav emitters towards another shelf to get a small bucket.

Oali joined Kemmie at the workroom terminal and they began sorting through the data the algorithm was bringing up.

Exactly four minutes and thirty-two seconds later, there was the sound of water splattering and a string of curses in Ryn.

“I was  _ up _ , you stupid droid!” Came Danyal's voice from the storage room.

The droid beeped and warbled.

“I don't care that my ‘ass was technically still on the cot’, I was  _ sitting up _ , dammit!”

A minute later Danyal appeared in the doorway, shaking water out of his hair and grumbling about clancousins who programmed their droids to be so snarky.

“Glad to see you up, Dan.” Oali said (in Basic for Kemmie's benefit), still looking at the terminal screen.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm up.” Danyal replied, his accented Basic thicker than usual. “So what have you and your girlfriend found that's so interesting?”

Oali froze, her brain scrambled to think of what she or Kemmie might have said or done to give a hint…

“What are you talking about--?” She began, but Danyal interrupted her.

“Oali,” he sighed quietly, gathering up his tangled damp hair into a loose top knot. “You've already dragged me out of a perfectly good hole I was hoping to spend the rest of my pitiful existence in, don't insult my intelligence, too.”

“Don’t be silly,” Oali said, desperate to change the subject. “I’m not going to let you live in my back room for the rest of your life.”

“Who says that’s going to be very long?” Danyal murmured, sitting down in a corner of the workshop and leaning his aching head on his hands.

Kemmie cleared her throat, getting the two Ryn’s attention. “I think I found a lead on the Togruta Pada-Jedi lady your clanmate want you to find. Here, sending info to you, babe, go look-see what you find, I'll watch the shop.”

“Come on, Danyal, you’re coming with me.” Oali urged, and all but dragged Danyal to his feet. As she herded him out the door, she looked back at Kemmie, worry in her eyes. Kemmie pointed two fingers towards her eyes, then towards Danyal.  _ Watch him, _ her gesture said. Oali nodded in agreement. 


End file.
